Emotional or psychological trauma is no laughing matter. It’s difficult to recover without a mental health expert, and the healing journey can take years.
Fortunately, you don’t have to go through everything alone. We’re here to discuss ways to make the process easier!
Today, we identify the types of emotional traumas and the stages of recovery. You’ll also discover essential tips for getting over a traumatic experience.
Are you ready to learn how to recover from emotional trauma? Let’s dive in.
Table of Contents
Understanding Emotional Trauma
Emotional trauma is a response to a terrible event in life.
A traumatic memory can make someone feel helpless or overwhelmed. It affects your daily life and even causes a person to break bonds with family.
There are three forms of trauma based on individual experience.
Acute trauma is the result of a single event, such as a natural disaster, sexual assault, or sudden death of loved ones.
Meanwhile, chronic trauma is from prolonged exposure. This involves cases such as domestic violence, bullying, and verbal abuse.
When someone gets exposed to many traumatic events, complex trauma happens. Sadly, these traumatic events can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder.
The Impact of Emotional Trauma
It’s important to know that stress reactions are normal responses to emotional traumas.
Each survivor’s coping mechanism is different. Understanding the impacts can help you better identify the issues to address.
Below are some of the impacts of emotional trauma.
- Emotional Dysregulation: This happens when survivors have a hard time regulating emotions. It’s a common reaction to childhood trauma.
- Numbing: Numbing happens when someone feels detached from thoughts and memories. Because you can’t see the physical symptoms, people around the survivor may not realize how severe the impact is.
- Physical Reactions: Psychological trauma affects the body and mind. It may cause physical reactions like chest pain, sleep disturbances, and other chronic diseases.
- Cognitive Impact: Long-term effects of trauma affect brain development. As a result, it makes survivors more vulnerable to illness and substance abuse.
The Stages of Recovering From Emotional Trauma
Healing from trauma takes time and effort. Yet, understanding the recovery journey will allow you to take control of the healing process!
Below are the stages of recovering from emotional traumas.
- Rumination: In this stage, you process the trauma and events. Post-traumatic stress symptoms may intrude on your daily life.
- Event Centrality: This is the point when you decide what to do moving forward. You begin to accept how the event changed your life.
- Control: At this stage, you take active measures to stop the effects of the trauma.
- Mastery: The trauma may still come back at times, but it no longer controls your actions. You learn to adjust and cope with your feelings of fear.
Remember that recovering from the effects of relationship trauma isn’t linear. What this means is you can move to the next stage one day, and start from the beginning another day.
Still, as you give yourself more time, the relapses will shorten. Eventually, the emotional trauma symptoms will lessen!
How to Recover From Emotional Trauma: 16 Tips That Help
Mastering your traumatic events is possible, and there’s plenty you can do to start your healing journey.
Here are 16 tips that’ll make the recovery process less painful.
- Don’t Blame Yourself
First, know that the traumatic event isn’t your fault, no matter what others tell you.
To tackle self-blame, spend some time reflecting on the factors that contributed to the outcome. Make a list of the positive aspects and focus on them.
Don’t let mistakes define your character, and develop self-compassion.
A great tip is to examine your beliefs about yourself. Once you’re aware of your negative thoughts, you can better change them!
- Remove the Trigger
One of the most crucial steps to recovery is to cut off the source of your trauma triggers. As long as you remain exposed to what’s causing you pain, you’ll never get better.
Depending on the type of trauma, this could mean you may have to move away or block people on social media. Never give your abusers access to you!
Another tip for trauma survivors is to discard possessions that remind you of the event.
A 2020 study showed that people who held onto objects or pictures after a breakup had difficulty adjusting. They struggled to manage their rational memories and found it harder to let go.
- Accept the Emotions
Accepting your emotions leads to fewer mood swings and improves your balance.
Know that you can’t change whatever happened in the past. You should accept the situation and move towards a better quality of life.
To do it, acknowledge the anger, fear, and shame. Don’t suppress them. Instead, feel them without judging yourself.
You can use the emotions as a learning experience and tell yourself that these negative feelings won’t last forever!
- Talk About It
Talking about your horrible memories can feel humiliating. Other times, the trauma feels so chaotic that you may think nobody will understand.
However, when others know about your situation, they can play a role in your recovery.
Telling a trusted confidant about your trauma allows you to receive the support you need. This person can help you unravel the event, and give you a reality check.
What’s more, seeking a therapist to discuss the situation will further push you toward healing. A therapist can give you expert advice and provide insights that others may not know about.
